The Android's Dream
John Scalzi
Tor
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****
DESCRIPTION: When an alien diplomat is murdered during routine trade negotiotiations, all interplanetary heck breaks loose. The Nidu
refuse to make peace until they receive a special offering for their upcoming coronation ceremony: a genetically-modified breed of sheep called the Android's Dream, created
specifically for their ruling class but inexplicably killed off on all colonies. Since the Nidu could easily turn Earth into cosmic dust, the government scrambles to find any
surviving strains of Android's Dream sheep... but not everyone wants the coronation to go off without a hitch, even if it means plunging Earth into an interstellar war which its
fledgeling fleet cannot hope to win.
Harry Creek was one of the few survivors of a devastating battle on alien soil, and would just as soon leave saving people and getting shot at behind him. When an old friend in
the State Department calls in a favor, he finds himself on a sheep hunt - an unusually dangerous sheep hunt. The trail leads through hired assassins, traitors to country and
species and memory, unexplored interplanetary legal and moral territory, and even the seemingly crackpot dream of the ultimate fringe religion.
REVIEW: Scalzi's tale is full of action and wit in more or less equal doses, though now and again his tangents and future-history lessons and such got in the way of things. He also seemed bound and determined to avoid describing 90% of his characters in any meaningful measure, a trait I found subtly irritating. Still, once the story got going it moved decently enough, and he pulled off a great ending.
You might also enjoy:
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide (Douglas Adams, Fiction - The irreverent tale of Arthur Dent, an Englishman who survives Earth's destruction by hitching a ride on an outbound alien ship)
Sky Coyote (Kage Baker, Fiction - A wittily-written tale about a company that uses immortal cyborgs to manipulate the past for future profit)
GalaxyQuest (Terry Bisson, Fiction - The washed-up cast of a cheesy old sci-fi show meets aliens who believe it was all real)
The Vlad Taltos series (Stephen Brust, Fiction - An assassin/detective works with his dragonlike familiar, in a series written with style and wit)
The Ender series (Orson Scott Card, Fiction - An unprepared Earth trains child prodigies against the return of hostile aliens)
Eoin Colfer's books (Eoin Colfer, Fiction and YA Fiction - Sharp, fun writing characterizes his stories)
Heroics for Beginners and The Unhandsome Prince (John Moore, Fiction - Clever, self-aware fantasy stories)
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Old Man's War
(Old Man's War series, Book 1)
John Scalzi
Tor
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****
DESCRIPTION: On John Perry's 75th birthday, he visited his wife's grave and joined the army - the Colonial Defense Forces, that is, charged with preserving and expanding humanity's tenuous toehold in interstellar space. It's a one-way ticket off the planet, but if he survives his two-to-ten years of service, he'll be rewarded with a homestead on a new world... not to mention the health and vitality to work it. For the CDF only recruits retirement-age men and women from Earth, and though organ regeneration and other treatments have prolonged human life expectancy significantly, they must have something special up their sleeves if they want to whip seventy-odd-year-old codgers into effective warriors. He didn't know what he expected to find when he left Earth, but the CDF and the brutal realities of interstellar survival are only the start, as John finds himself becoming someone - something - he never anticipated in his wildest dreams.
REVIEW: This is a fast-paced story with plenty of interesting ideas behind it, and a fair degree of wit. The science feels solid enough without bogging down the narrative excessively with theories and physics, and the aliens and battles are strange and gory enough to make Earth-based warfare downright quaint in comparison. Perry isn't the only one who seems to be in over his head; humans in general seem to hardly know what they're doing in space, other than fighting for the few habitable planets against beings they can barely understand, let alone effectively kill. I enjoyed it, and read it in a single day. There's at least one more book in the universe, which I ought to track down someday.
You might also enjoy:
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide (Douglas Adams, Fiction - The irreverent tale of Arthur Dent, an Englishman who survives Earth's destruction by hitching a ride on an outbound alien ship)
Sky Coyote (Kage Baker, Fiction - A wittily-written tale about a company that uses immortal cyborgs to manipulate the past for future profit)
GalaxyQuest (Terry Bisson, Fiction - The washed-up cast of a cheesy old sci-fi show meets aliens who believe it was all real)
Kiln People (David Brin, Fiction - In the future, people can create daylong duplicates for work or play)
The Vlad Taltos series (Stephen Brust, Fiction - An assassin/detective works with his dragonlike familiar, in a series written with style and wit)
The Ender series (Orson Scott Card, Fiction - An unprepared Earth trains child prodigies against the return of hostile aliens)
Eoin Colfer's books (Eoin Colfer, Fiction and YA Fiction - Sharp, fun writing characterizes his stories)
Trading in Danger (Elizabeth Moon, Fiction - The disgraced daughter of a shipping magnate finds herself in the middle of a galactic conflict)
Heroics for Beginners and The Unhandsome Prince (John Moore, Fiction - Clever, self-aware fantasy stories)
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